Who's Behind the First Families?

You've seen The Butler. Now comes The Residence, Kate Andersen Brower's new book on the staffers who've made their mark on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Paging Hollywood: These women have biopic-worthy stories. Maud Shaw, in white, with John-John Kennedy outside the Oval Office in 1963 The nanny who broke news of an assassination: It was beloved caregiver Maud Shaw who told Caroline, five, and John-John, two, that their father, President John F. Kennedy, had died. "There was an accident, and your father was shot," she said. "God has taken him to heaven." The convicted murderer who became a trusted nanny: In 1970, less than a year after she got a life sentence for killing a man in Georgia, Mary Prince moved into Governor Jimmy Carter's mansion to care for daughter Amy, three, as part of a prison trustee program. When Carter won the presidency in 1976, Prince's work release was terminated, and she was sent back to jail. Rosalynn Carter, who believed Prince was wrongly convicted, secured a reprieve so Prince could join them in Washington. Prince was later granted a full pardon; to this day she occasionally babysits the Carters' grandkids. The cook who helped inspire the civil rights movement:

You've seen The Butler. Now comes The Residence, Kate Andersen Brower's new book on the staffers who've made their mark on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Paging Hollywood: These women have biopic-worthy stories.

Maud Shaw, in white, with John-John Kennedy outside the Oval Office in 1963

The nanny who broke news of an assassination: It was beloved caregiver Maud Shaw who told Caroline, five, and John-John, two, that their father, President John F. Kennedy, had died. "There was an accident, and your father was shot," she said. "God has taken him to heaven."

The convicted murderer who became a trusted nanny: In 1970, less than a year after she got a life sentence for killing a man in Georgia, Mary Prince moved into Governor Jimmy Carter's mansion to care for daughter Amy, three, as part of a prison trustee program. When Carter won the presidency in 1976, Prince's work release was terminated, and she was sent back to jail. Rosalynn Carter, who believed Prince was wrongly convicted, secured a reprieve so Prince could join them in Washington. Prince was later granted a full pardon; to this day she occasionally babysits the Carters' grandkids.

The cook who helped inspire the civil rights movement: Lyndon B. Johnson, a young politician, and wife Lady Bird hired Zephyr Wright to cook for their family in Texas while she was still a home-ec major in college. Wright then moved with them to D.C. for L.B.J.'s budding career; on their drive through the segregated South, several hotels refused to house Wright, who was black. That experience helped inspire Johnson's civil rights efforts. As President, he sought Wright's opinions on M.L.K. Jr.'s March on Washington and more. She cooked for them for 27 years. —By Andrea Bartz